


Catch me if You Can

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2009 [20]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Numb3rs
Genre: Gen, Implied/Attempted Torture, Justice, Pedophilia, Revenge, Sexual Abuse, Violence, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:11:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They each have their own version of justice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch me if You Can

**Author's Note:**

> UrbanGhost requested Buffy, the Vampire Slayer/Numb3rs, Buffy/Don, _Don in his fugitive recovery days_. - I had fun with this. Thanks.
> 
> 2009 repost.

+

When Don kicks down the door to the shabby motel room, calling out the usual one liner about FBI, we got you now, lay down your weapons, he expects to find a lot of things. 

Walter Kellen is a bad man, a pedophile that went after little girls in eight different states that they know of. He’s been on the run for almost a year, disappearing out of the country for a while and then coming back about a month ago. Don’s almost caught up to the sucker on six different occasions, missing him by minutes every time.

Which is why he’s going in without his partner. He’s not waiting another damn minute.

So he’s pissed off, eager as a puppy, slightly gleeful and expecting just about anything. 

Except that.

Walter lies flat on his back in the middle of the dull green bedspread, both his hands cuffed to the headboard above his head. Sitting on top of him is a dainty blonde in leather pants, who’s grinning at the man under her with a slightly deranged expression.

She looks at Don for a moment, then summarily dismisses him and turns back to her… client? But that doesn’t fit because as far as they know, Walter doesn’t touch anyone above the age of fifteen and that woman is definitely… a woman. Besides, tight leather pants are not exactly standard hooker wear. No easy access. And she looks too vengeful to be paid for anything.

Then FBI training kicks in and Don redirects his gun to aim at the more imminent threat, “Ma’am, please raise your hands above your head and get off him.”

“Five minutes,” she says, staring Walter dead in the eye, he squirms, strains against the handcuffs and turns pleading eyes on the FBI Agent. 

That’s a new one. 

“What?” 

“Look, since you’re here and looking pretty trigger happy, you know what that scum bag did. All I want are five minutes with him. Give me that, and you’ll never see me again.”

Before Don can even think of an answer – well, one that is not a yes, tempting as that may be – Walter starts struggling again, yelling, “Please don’t, don’t leave me with that bitch! She’s crazy!”

The crazy bitch punches him in the jaw. Hard. Don thinks he might hear something breaking but then decides that no, he didn’t hear anything at all, right there, right then. He sort of has no sympathy for men that like hurting little girls. 

She leans in low, pressing him down with her hands on his shoulder in a way that has got to hurt with his hands tied above his head and hisses, “Please? You’re begging? Cute, Walter, real cute.”

“I’m sorry!” He’s sobbing and Don should really do something, but short of shooting the blonde, what _can_ he do?

“Sorry? You’re sorry that Amy hasn’t spoken a single word in six months? You’re sorry that Linnie still flinches when someone touches her? You’re sorry for that?”

He nods, frantically, relief clear on his face. Don isn’t so sure the man’s getting off free.

“Well, bad for you. You hurt my girls, Walter. No-one hurts my girls. _No-one_. I should kill you.”

O-kay. Much as Don can understand the sentiment, he can’t let her kill the sack of shit. Even if he hurt her kids. Her kids. He tries to guess her age, tries to guess how old they could be and the answer he comes up with is bad, really bad. 

Sometimes Don hates his job. Hates that he can’t just walk away, come back in half an hour, find Walter dead. Who’d mourn the guy? He certainly wouldn’t. All the girls he hurt wouldn’t.

But. But. 

“Ma’am,” he repeats, “Please get off him. I can’t let you do that.”

Surprisingly, she slumps, defeated, no fight in her. “I know,” she sighs and throws him a brilliantly fake grin. “Worth a try, though, right?”

She climbs off Walter, making sure to knee him in the balls while she’s at it and then dig the heel of one of her boots into his knee. He whimpers. She backs off into the far corner of the room, apparently not intending to leave just yet, and then throws Don the keys to the cuffs. He catches them and tucks away his gun to free Walter, deciding to trust the blonde.

Walter is too beat up to put up a fight. That, and scared. He keeps sneaking looks at the woman, absolutely terrified of her. Don wonders who she is as he roughly turns his fugitive on his stomach and cuffs his hands behind his back. He uses one of the woman’s pairs of handcuffs on his feet, just to make sure, and then he has nothing to do but wait for his partner and the belated backup to show up.

He looks the woman up and down again and tries to think of something to say. Sorry he ruined your kids’ lives doesn’t seem like a good way to start a conversation.

“I’m pretty sure no-one’s going to do anything to you for this little stunt,” he finally tells her.

She nods, shrugs, like she expected nothing else.

“How’d you find him?” 

She hesitates briefly, then says, “He worked for our company for a few months, in London. I know him well enough to know his patterns.”

Worked for them? Who is them and as what exactly did he do there? As far as Don knows, Walter has no marketable skills, having only a degree in mythology and some old languages.

“What do you do?” He asks, curiosity getting the better of him. Dead languages and a hot chick in leather pants don’t look very compatible.

“We run an international school for gifted girls.” She smiles at the words, obviously proud of the place. And her girls. So she wasn’t talking about her own children after all. Don feels slightly relieved because that means Walter didn’t turn to toddlers in his absence from the States, and then feels sick because it really doesn’t matter if they’re five or fifteen. They’re still children. Children he hurt. 

So Walter somehow got in the school, false credentials probably, and got to two of the girls before they could stop him. And then this woman hunted him across the Atlantic to put him down. Must be one hell of a school.

“The girls you talked about,” he wants to know, “How are they?”

She smiles at his concern and visibly straightens. “They’re young, and hurt, but they’re tough. They’re gonna pull through. I’ll make sure of that.”

Sirens in the distance, doors slamming in the parking lot and then his partner’s here, and the unneeded backup. Don glares at Walter and tells him, very kindly, that if he mentions the woman that was just here, he’ll make sure everyone in prison knows what he gets off on. The man shrinks into himself, panic turning him white as chalk, obviously more scared of the woman than of Don’s threat. That’s okay, though. As long as Walter lives in fear, Don’s happy.

He turns back to the blonde to tell her to slip away if she can, but she’s already gone. 

Later that night, after they celebrate their catch, he stumbles toward his hotel bed only to freeze as something small and white on the bedside table greets him. Something that he knows he didn’t put there. It’s a card, blank except for a phone number on one side and a scrawled note on the back.

_If you ever need a job, we’re always looking._

It’s not signed, but he knows perfectly fine who it’s from. He stares at it for a moment, then shrugs and tucks it into his wallet. 

+


End file.
